Manufactures gun finishes question..

Been a while since I've posted in this forum since I've been very busy doing restoration work (guns). I'm in the process now of restoring the finish on a fella's Mod. 36 S&W. This gun is the reason for this thread..

Before I got started, I noticed that the finsih seemed to be "flaking" off in one spot. The issue with this gun was that the client had been keeping the gun in the bathroom of his house so that if needed, he or his wife could get to it. Given that this was not the best of places to keep a nicely finished blued handgun, it was no surprise to see the flash pitting that had occured to this handgun.

What's got me confused is the flaking that I saw. The original finish is a high gloss blue but I'm beginning to think that it was sprayed with some sort of a laqure as part of the finishing process. The flaking appeared to be the laqure pealing away from the handguns finish.. Am I correct in my assumption?

I've basically had to remove all or most of the original finish to make the new finish match up. I'm hand polishing the gun now to a mirror finish before I reblue it. the only thing I'm not messing with is the cylinder. I'll post pictures later to show what I was talking about..

Some times it's in the handling before the bluing process. One using bare hands and transferring oil and salts will do this to the finnish over a period of time. Iv'e heard of people that use Clear Coat to seal out Moisture. Good Luck!!

Thanks guys... I would not have thought S&W would apply something like that to their guns but the flaking is what caused me to wonder.. Pretty much all the old finish is gone now and like I said before, I'm just working up the shine before I apply the new finish.

Attached Files:

That almost looks like the spray on finish from GunKote. They have a high gloss blue and if the handgun was not prepped correctly, flaking can and will occur.
Were the flakes the same color on both sides?

In each of the photo's you should be able to see where the flaking is occuring. This was the reason for my original post. I've only encountered this sort of thing with older milsurp handguns and rifles that did actually get painted finishes applied to them.

"Flaking" denotes that the finish is coming off in pieces. Your finish is not flaking. "Spotting" would be a better term. The spots are caused by moisture or a caustic substance contacting that area. Bluing will do that if it's not taken care of.

Just a stray thought- if that was clearcoated with something, spotting will start where moisture can get under, and spread from there. Notice a few spots that it seems to start from an edge- which would be point of entry. Backstrap looks rather pitted. Shame. Got a Model 36 from the early 70s that looks much better- good guns if you give them minimal care.

One more time. The gun is finished in a black oxide coating, normally called bluing. It is not clear coated, painted, anodized, plated, nitrided, or anything else. The spots you see could have easily been caused by simple water. This is a very common occurrence with blued steel firearms. Why are you guys making this out to be something it's not? The little raised areas are simple rust.

One more time. The gun is finished in a black oxide coating, normally called bluing. It is not clear coated, painted, anodized, plated, nitrided, or anything else. The spots you see could have easily been caused by simple water. This is a very common occurrence with blued steel firearms. Why are you guys making this out to be something it's not? The little raised areas are simple rust.